Alena made a point of staring at her book, flipping the page over with a touch of aggression. Didn’t they know it was rude to bother people when they were reading? She thought about telling him ‘I’m just biding my time until someone interesting comes along.’ That’s what Charline would do, and generally speaking no one stuck around to bother her but Alena didn’t think she would master the delivery with the right amount of scorn so she bit her tongue. Besides she was already beginning to feel embarrassed. It’d occurred to her when she sat down how sad she might look but Alena had really been counting on the ‘don’t bother people when they’re reading’ element to keep her from having to face her loneliness head on. She chose silence as her only response to the partygoer, perhaps if she pretended to be so immersed in the book not to have noticed them they’d leave. They didn’t, only mocked her further.

“Must be a really good book.”

She was once again thankful for the sunglasses which hide the widening of her eyes as her breath caught in her throat, her brain scrambling for a response. Without noticing she’d snapped the book shut, and began tossing it from hand to hand, channeling her nervous energy. Briefly, she glanced over to see an older boy with striking auburn hair, and finally acknowledged him with the curve of her lip before focusing her hazel eyes on the grains of sand lodged between her fingernails. It was easier to talk to people if she avoided their gaze.

“It isn’t,” she spoke quietly, taking deliberate care with her pronunciation, it was easy to slip deeper into her accent when she was nervous, “not really.”

Worried it could become a topic for conversation she set the book aside in favour of sieving sand between her fingers. “I don’t know many people here so, I was just waiting. For some more people to arrive.” It was true she had for example, been hoping Darlene might attend although she’d never actually brought the party up with the other girl. But she was still taking a few liberties by insinuating she had friends in a plural sense. In hope of distracting her new acquaintance from asking about all these fun friends she was waiting on Alena forced herself to make further conversation unaided, “I’ve not seen you around before. My name’s Alena. Alena Adler.”

She tossed her surname out as an afterthought driven by her Papa’s lessons. It was always important to let people know where you came from if you could, she chanced another peek at the boy over her sunglasses. No she didn’t think she’d seen him around much at all.

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